Chapter 802: Hiruzen's Substitutes?
"Another tiresome day…" Shikaku sighed as he let out a yawn. His wife looked at him and chuckled, "Your work won't decrease just because you sigh and complain. In fact, it always has the opposite impact."
Shikaku tiredly replied, "It's all that brat's fault. Until Lord Jiraiya brings back Lady Tsunade, I'll have to suffer irrespective of how much I sigh…"
His laziness soured his wife's mood and she immediately scolded, "You should show more enthusiasm. Your laziness has been influencing Shikamaru. He is already showing signs of the same laziness as you and complains about everything!"
Shikaku knew very well that anything he said would only make his wife more upset. As such, he just listened to her nagging before falling onto his bed. Within moments, he fell asleep. While he always complained, he had really been working a lot as he was handling the Hokage's duties along with his duties at the same time!
Unfortunately, merely a minute after he fell asleep, his eyes opened up as their bell rang. Shikaku immediately became serious and got up. He quickly moved to the door while thinking, 'To contact me at this hour, did something happen? However, what can be so important? Our armies are back in our territories and the negotiation team shouldn't have reached yet.'
Shikaku's mind immediately analyzed a few dozen scenarios before opening the door. An Anbu ninja handed him a scroll and reported, "We just received an extremely important message from Suzuki Fujin. He added a small note to hand the scroll to you directly and immediately."
Shikaku accepted the scroll and said, "Alright, I'll look into it."
The Anbu ninja flickered away while Shikaku entered his house again. He opened the scroll and laid his eyes on the contents inside. As soon as he did, his eyes twitched as he wondered, 'Did he have to use this cipher or did he do it just to increase my workload? The cipher team can't decode this message. I'll have to do it all by myself… Sigh, I hope this message is actually important and solves some of my troubles instead of increasing them.'
Though unwilling, Shikaku spent half an hour decoding the message before reading the entire scroll. His eyes widened as he thought, 'This… Shit! I told him to decrease my workload, not increase it! Why did he order the death of over 200 Kumogakure ninjas? And what does he mean by doing it silently? It may not have been obvious the last time, but it is very obvious this time.